Outstanding warrants: Sussex Police response

Michael Drummond

Suspects who fail to appear at the end of their bail pose a problem to policing.

We spoke to Sussex Police about the challenges in tracking them down:

Inspector Chris Collins said: “Every warrant is categorised in terms of seriousness of the offence and added to Police IT systems. It is sent to officers in Sussex or other police forces for execution normally starting at the last address.

“The challenge is always to come up with new ideas that can be used to locate individuals who are wanted on warrant.

”There are real challenges in locating individuals and in the majority of older outstanding warrant cases, the wanted person is believed to be overseas.

“Tracing wanted people includes visiting places where they are known and publicity where appropriate, as well as other tactics available to the police.

“Where it is believed a wanted person has fled the country, we carry out checks with airlines, airports, ports and conduct enquiries through the Interpol network. In appropriate cases, extradition procedures will be used to bring the individual back to Sussex to face trial.

“There is an established system of review in place with regular checks monitored by dedicated staff in our Warrant Enforcement Bureau.

“The period between reviews depends on seriousness of the case and how long the individual has been wanted for.”